Local or domestic environments often encompass many communication devices, for processing (for instance acquiring, receiving, transmitting and/or rendering) an audio and/or video content. Such communication devices can include inter-communication devices (like gateways or repeaters), and end-devices like set-top-boxes (STB), smartphones, tablets, personal computers or peripherals like speakers (or audio renderers) or microphones that have become widely used nowadays.
With the increasing consumption of multimedia contents, it is often desirable for a user to be able to consume contents in an adaptive environment, like for instance in different rooms of a house, or to consume contents coming from different sources (like for instance distant sources accessible from the Internet or local storage medium). However, the processing capabilities of a device may sometimes be insufficient for providing technical features like video processing, to a user. Indeed, video processing, notably high definition video processing, can be very memory and Central Processing Unit (CPU) intensive. Thus, more and more very small devices can be equipped with a complementary device, adapted to enhance the processing capabilities of the device.
For such an adaptive environment, a device can be equipped, or associated, with one or more additional device(s) or complementary device(s) such as a dongle(s)) or other removable peripheral device, that enhance the processing capabilities of the device. Such an additional device can also provide additional processing capabilities such as audio/video processing capabilities, and/or wireless capabilities to a device. Such an additional device can be for instance an HDMI peripheral device.
The peripheral devices are usually connected via a wired communication port of the main device. The peripheral device can use the communication port for exchanging data with the main device and also for its operating power.
Such a communication port can be notably a port compliant to a standard communication interface like a USB interface or an HDMI interface.
The use of a standardized communication interface requires complying with requirements of the relevant standard such as power limitation requirements. For instance, the USB 2.0 standard requires a current limitation of 500 mA, and thus a power limitation of 2.5 W, with a voltage of 5V. USB 3.0 standard requires a limitation of 900 mA and thus a power limitation of 4.5 W with a voltage of 5V. However, some services of a peripheral processing device may be very greedy in terms of power, and thus a peripheral device may require a total consumption of more than 1 W for performing some services. The power limitation imposed by a standard may thus induce some limitations in the use of the peripheral device. For instance, it may not be possible to use all processing resources of the peripheral device at the same time.
Thus, there is need for a solution that permits enhancing the user experience of a peripheral device.